nfe driver 6.2 stable

[Chris]

On 24/09/2007, Chris <chrcoluk at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 24/09/2007, Jeremy Chadwick <koitsu at freebsd.org> wrote:
> > On Mon, Sep 24, 2007 at 12:57:23AM +0100, Chris wrote:
> > > nfe0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
> > >         options=8<VLAN_MTU>
> > >         inet x.x.x.x netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast x.x.x.x
> > >         inet x.x.x.x netmask 0xffffffff broadcast x.x.x.x
> > >         ether x
> > >         media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseTX <full-duplex>)
> > >         status: active
> > >
> > > 1 - is there a man page for nfe anywhere?
> >
> > Closest thing I can find would be the manpage from -CURRENT's nfe(4),
> > which is supposedly the same code.
> >
> > http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=nfe&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=FreeBSD+7-current&format=html
> >
> > > 2 - does it support hardware checksum I remember reading it does but
> > > from ifconfig output it appears to not be in use so if it does support
> > > it how do I enable it?
> >
> > It does support it, but I don't know the circumstances surrounding when
> > it gets enabled.  That is to say, it's known that some versions of the
> > chip (and/or associated PHY) have bugs, so possibly hardware checksum
> > offloading is known to be broken on the system you're on.  Taken from my
> > 7-CURRENT box at home (Asus A8N-E, nForce 4-based):
> >
> > nfe0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
> >        options=10b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,TSO4>
> >        ether 00:15:f2:17:30:e9
> >        inet 192.168.1.51 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
> >        media: Ethernet 1000baseTX <full-duplex>
> >        status: active
> >
> > I do not explicitly specify rxcsum or txcsum in my rc.conf ifconfig
> > line.
> >
> > > 3 - same with TOS?
> >
> > TOS (type-of-service) or TSO?  If TSO, see above ifconfig.
> >
> > > 4 - how do I enable jumbo frames if it supports it?
> >
> > You should take a bit more itme to read the webpage you obtained the
> > driver from.  I see these on the page:
> >
> > 2007/01/06      Added jumbo frame support. [...] Fixed a bug to handle
> >                Tx/Rx checksum offload settings with ifconfig.
> > 2006/08/11      Added support for jumbo frame capability.
> >
> > yongari@ (Pyun YongHyeon) should be able to provide additional help
> > with both.
> >
> > > 5 - is it safe to use with zero copy sockets?
> >
> > No idea.
> >
> > > 6 - I currently have both net.isr.direct and mpsafenet disabled is
> > > this driver safe to use on them?
> >
> > No idea.
> >
> > --
> > | Jeremy Chadwick                                    jdc at parodius.com |
> > | Parodius Networking                           http://www.parodius.com/ |
> > | UNIX Systems Administrator                      Mountain View, CA, USA |
> > | Making life hard for others since 1977.                  PGP: 4BD6C0CB |
> >
> >
>
> Thanks yes I meant TSO sorry, I would guess with the checksum either
> the 6.x driver is older and not fully implemented yet, the 6.x driver
> does need more patches for certian chipsets so would indicate its
> older then the CURRENT driver.  Or as you said my chipset is known to
> be unstable with the hardware checksums.
>
> The card is more stable when using nve driver no crashes still but the
> performance is around the same maxing out at around 200mbit.  I was
> expecting nearer 400-500mbit.
>
> e1000phy0: <Marvell 88E1116 Gigabit PHY> on miibus0
>
> Is the line from dmesg, I believe in CURRENT mpsafe is always on
> regardless so if you have no problems then its a good sign and I will
> reenable mpsafe networking (default).
>
> Thanks really appreciated.
>
> Chris
>

More info its a NVIDIA nForce 430 MCP13 adaptor from dmesg.

2006/08/17 Provided a patch to support Marvell 88E1116 PHY

In the changelog after they added hardware checksum the changelog says
MCP65 had it removed from driver due to no support so I may contact
the driver author on this to see what he says.

Chris

Chris